Independence County Historical Society

10/15/2026

Destany Lytle will present on Sunday, November 18, at 2 PM at the Old Independence Regional Museum. The public is invited to attend.

Destany Lytle has worked at Blowing Cave for five years. Through her experience, she has developed a deep appreciation for the cave’s unique biodiversity and the importance of protecting its natural environment. Her discussion will explore the diverse life found in and around Blowing Cave, along with the conservation efforts and responsible practices that help preserve this special ecosystem for future generations.

07/15/2026

Dr. Vaughn Scribner will be presenting at our meeting on Sunday, July 19 at 2 PM at the Old Independence Regional Museum. The public is invited to attend.

The Revolutionary War is often celebrated as marking the birth of American republicanism, liberty, and representative democracy. Yet for the tens of thousands of British and Hessian troops sent 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to wage war under alien skies, such a progressive picture, as Vaughn Scribner reveals, could not have been further from the truth. In Under Alien Skies, Scribner illustrates how foreign soldiers' negative perceptions of the American environment merged with harsh wartime realities to elicit considerable physical, mental, and emotional anguish.

Whether trudging through alligator-infested swamps, nursing a comrade back to health in a rain-sodden tent, or digging trenches in a burned-out port city, most who fought in America under the British army’s flag ultimately deemed themselves strangers fighting in a strange land. For them, Revolutionary America looked nothing like the “happy land . . . blessed with every climate” that Revolutionary republicans so successfully promoted. Instead, the War of Independence descended into a quagmire of anxiety, destruction, and distress at the hands of the American environment—a “Diabolical Country,” as one British soldier opined, “which no Earthly Compensation can put me in Charity with.”

Vaughn Scribner is an Associate Professor of American History at the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of three books, the most recent of which, Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America, won the 2024 Society of the Cincinnati Book Prize and was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize. He lives in Conway with his wife, Kristen, and their rescue pup, "Tod" (yes, with one "d").

07/09/2026

03/10/2026

Learn about AI & Genealogy with Mr. Scott E. Lee Monday, March 16th at 1pm.

01/15/2026

Dr. Buckley T. Foster will be presenting at our meeting on Sunday, January 18 at 2 PM at the Old Independence Regional Museum. The public is invited to attend.

Dr. Buckley T. Foster, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of 19th-Century Southern and Arkansas History at the University of Central Arkansas. He is a 7th-generation Arkansawyer. Foster's first book, Sherman’s Mississippi Campaign, started as his dissertation at Mississippi State University. His latest monograph, So Great Was the Slaughter: Market Hunters, Sportsmen, and Wildlife Conservation in Arkansas, examines the decline of market hunting, the rise of the modern sportsman, and the origins of wildlife conservation in Arkansas from 1800 to 1925. The University of Alabama Press has published both. His subsequent research project involves the Federal side of early wildlife conservation, the Migratory Bird Law/Act, and the fight between non-resident sportsmen and market hunters at Big Lake in Arkansas. He has written for Arkansas Wildlife, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, and Greenhead Magazine. He has appeared on the Bear Grease podcast, the Arkansas Game and Fish Podcast — Arkansas Wildlife —and a segment of Arkansas Outdoors on KFSM TV in Fayetteville.

So Great Was the Slaughter: Market Hunters, Sportsmen, and Wildlife Conservation in Arkansas reveals the untold story of Arkansas conservation pioneers who tried to save the state’s game and fish populations. As Arkansas entered the twentieth century, the national demand for meat, combined with the ability to ship millions of animals to hungry cities like New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago, had driven many species, including bison and passenger pigeons, to extinction in Arkansas. Many others, including deer, bear, turkey, quail, and fish, were in danger of disappearing.
In response, an unlikely coalition of Arkansas sportsmen, hunters, and conservationists created a vision for conservation legislation, game laws, and the establishment of fish hatcheries and wildlife refuges. With support from influential outsiders like E. A. McIlhenny and the United States Biological Survey, they waged a long battle against entrenched political and commercial interests.
Buckley Foster’s meticulous research reveals how these pioneers fought to save the state’s wildlife resources from destruction and laid the foundations for sustainable, modern wildlife management in Arkansas. So Great Was the Slaughter will fascinate hunters, conservationists, historians, and those interested in the history of wildlife conservation and conflicts between market hunters and sportsmen in the United States and the American South.